house-to-house searching were going on. basically every type of officer that you can imagine. but never have i seen them more so quickly or purposefully than they did in the last two minutes. >> we're going to be monitoring that. these are live shots of the scene. you stay safe, erica. "hardball" is next. >> well, he's still out there. let's play "hardball." >> shots have been fired in the last two minutes or so, heavy police activity right in that area as the manhunt continues

for one of the suspects in this week's boston marathon shooting. where is dzhokhar tsarnaev? he could be on the verge of et going caught here despite a massive drag net. >> we do not have apprehension of our suspect this afternoon but we will have one. we're committed to that. i want the neighborhood here in watertown to know that we went through about 20 streets here door to door. >> tsarnaev and his brother were identified as the bombers and since then shot an m.i.t. officer, carjacked -- let's go to a live picture. a lot of activity. let's go to kerry sanders. we don't have him yet. >> there is a suspect that somehow was able to elude the

police here. that is the second suspect. and it's possible that he -- because he was on foot, it's believed, is somewhere still in watertown. now, the authorities spent all day combing through 20 streets here and they were even going indoor homes and checking houses and finally they lifted that order for people to remain in their homes. some of them were driving out here with smiles on their faces and now all of a sudden this. i'm going to step out of the way because we have some of the folks here from the military that are pulling out as well. so the barrage of gunfire down in that general direction, it's west here in watertown and i wish i could tell you i understood more about what it is but clearly the police are responding to the gunfire.

>> erica, can you hear me? erica hill, report. >> reporter: yes. yes. >> erica? >> reporter: yes. >> you're on the air. >> reporter: chris, we are here in watertown and there has been an increased police presence and with certainty, to say the very least. just a couple minutes ago we saw what appear to be s.w.a.t. vehicles at the end of this street just behind me to the right. all of a sudden they pealed out of here and right after that a number of vehicles came through very quickly, much faster than we had seen throughout the day. lights on, sirens going and a number of officers came in. you can see the ones behind me here. this time really moving with a sense of purpose. we had seen just about every imaginable law enforcement vehicle today come through this area as they were doing those house to house searches on 20 blocks here in watertown and we

saw that increased police presence but they weren't walking nearly as quickly nor with as much purpose as we have seen in the last couple of minutes. clearly there is something going on. there were reports of shots fired at another area of watertown not where we are standing right now. there are a lot more people on the streets and we're not just talking about law enforcement. that's because as soon as we heard at that press conference after 6:00 p.m. that the stay indoors had been lifted, we saw so many people going out on the streets. they are bringing their dogs out for a walk and as those vehicles are pealing around the corner and down the street behind me, there were a number of people gathered around the street corner. they started cheering, clapping, saying go get him. where exactly they were headed, that is being looked into. we don't want to dive into speculation at this point but as you can see, there is a lot of focus from people here on the ground. there is a lot of chatter from the officers.

clearly there are some sort of developments happening. >> all right. erica, hold on. we're going to whdh for their live broadcast of the location. >> they do have -- i don't know if they have fire on the way but they are all coming here. >> wow. all right. >> so where do you believe the shots are being fired? have you any idea about that? >> no, i have not heard any shots. >> you have not heard any shots? >> no, but i'm not all that close. i'm at the beginning of franklin street. >> i see where you are. okay. >> well, we heard dan running towards the scene and i heard at least one time what sounded like a p poing noise and he was reporting that he was talking to a neighbor on laurel street which was the site of the big gunfight last night and that they heard similar sounds. >> rudy, stay on the phone with us. stay on the phone if you will. we're going to check in with dan.

>> there's the cemetery. >> dan, are you back with us? >> yes. i'm seeing an ambulance come in from behind here, not all the way up to the scene. again, i see dozens of officers crouched in an edge of an area that i don't want to get into too many details to give too many operation details. but about 100 feet back with the next officers lined up behind vehicles and trees, and i'm watching the officers up front run behind some trees and behind some houses where they are crouching in position and i have not heard any more gunshots and it's not clear who was firing at whom. >> all right. dan, we had just spoken with rudy, our photographer. you know him well. i guess from his perspective, he did not hear any gunshots but he's not perhaps as close.

>> or in the same spot. >> or in the same area that you are. but again, we want to make it clear, kim thought he heard it through your speaker but you did hear several gunshots at different times? >> absolutely. as i say, that first series of shots i heard a dozen and then since coming up i heard a pop, pop of one or two, one or two. a sheriff i'm seeing walking up here in the back end and the other officers taking their defensive positions as they find ways to check out the target area and i've seen officers, one or two at a time move up a little closer. >> all right. now we're going to -- i'm not sure who we're getting reports from. let's go back to erica hill now.

erica? >> reporter: chris, we're seeing a number of folks coming in now. people being told to clear out of the street. we know that the boston police department apparently sent out a tweet noted that residents on franklin street in the watertown area should stay in place. that's about a mile, mile and a quarter from where we are here in watertown and again we are seeing this increased presence come through. there are a number of reports coming out on social media, people tweeting but what we want to do is be very cautious and in what we're reporting and make sure it's accurate again before it goes on the air. but this increased police presence is definitely something that you cannot ignore. as they continue to come through on the street here. people have been cooped up inside all day. as soon as that order was lifted, we saw half a dozen,

dozen people trickle outside. now just over my side, there's easily a dozen people. that's just on one corner. we are looking at people on every corner coming out. everybody watching and waiting to see what will happen. they are watching very carefully the officers behind me. you can see that they have now moved down the road a little bit. they are not as close as they were. they are moving down closer to whatever the location is where they have all made their way to coming back down that way. >> you know, we're familiar with that because every time we broadcast from boston from msnbc, we use that site right there, that video link right in that area of watertown. it's so familiar. it's a neighborhood. it's one of the old-time downtown neighborhoods that walmart hasn't removed from its action, regular business community. watertown is right near cambridge, massachusetts. i'm impressed that we're hearing gunshots and chatter as we say internationally on the tweets now that suggest something is very deadly here and serious.

we can't say what it is. but it being looks like what you think it is. it looks like we are into something. >> erica was just referring to a boston police tweet which says, "police operations in the franklin street watertown areas, resident shelter in place." this is coming an hour or so after the governor and mayor said you no longer have shelter in place. obviously something is going on. >> shelter in place means -- >> get back inside. they were just let out, the governor and mayors just said you can come out of your homes about an hour ago but be careful. now they are saying get back in your homes. there's a police operation under way. >> can we tell by the number of police cars, squad cars that have been called to this scene how intense this situation is, roger cressey? >> there's been that massive presence since last night.

the good news is they have hit all of the infrastructure and resources since the event began but once we heard in the press conference that the individual was on foot, i think there was an expectation, if something was going to happen, it was going to happen quickly. the likelihood of him having an escape route, that went away last night. this could go very quickly if in fact this is the final element. >> clint van zandt, do you think that was on purpose to alert whoever the suspect was in this case that things weren't going to be that hot for them, it was time to make a run? we'll see, of course. >> yeah, we'll see. does being would be a good time if he was in one place to start moving but chris, one report we had from the local affiliate was that dozen shots. that's about the capacity of the magazine from a semiautomatic pistols. so the big concern that i have right now is this over abundance

of manpower and fire power. this takes very disciplined on the part of law enforcement. you want to get there, you want to get a perimeter around the area but you only want a few designated officers or s.w.a.t. teams to deal with it. the last thing in the world we need is crossfire going at the same time so whoever is on the on scene commander has got to be real disciplined right now with what they have. worst case scenario we could end up shooting somebody we don't want to shoot. >> what do you make of the atf? we just saw someone putting on a bulletproof vest? >> we have over 30 federal agencies represented right now. anybody part of that effort who has a capability to engage in a close environment like this certainly is going to be deployed. there could be explosives. you have to assume if there is this individual here, tsarnaev is held up, he may have additional explosives with him.

he may be armed with semiautomatic or pistols. you have to assume the whole broad range of force capability. he might have at his disposal. >> don't forget, this is a 19-year-old young man who was really falling the lead, we believe, from all reports of his older brother. his older brother rather than being captured was throwing devices, explosives at authorities and had an ied strapped to him. so they are expecting the worst here. >> and also his desperation would be multiplied by the fact that he has knowledge that he ran over his brother as he escaped and the fact that he had anything to do with the killing of his brother is unimaginable. >> right. >> and now he's alone. obviously guilt-ridden. terrified. >> exhausted. >> yep. >> he may be injured. since monday you can't believe this individual has had any type of normal rest. so all of these factors are playing in right now. so we may in fact be back where we were several hours ago where

we're talking about a situation where there could be a standoff and we could try to engage the individual to try and negotiate and allow him to surrender to authorities. >> that is a very important point. they desperately want to take him alive. they need information. was he a lone wolf, his brother and he? were they connected to a home-grown cell? were they connected to foreign operatives? we have never before seen chechen operatives going against the u.s. >> just think about the immediate situation. you know he's going to get the first couple guys coming for him. that's the danger. >> i would count on the sharpshooters. >> get him from a distance. let me go to jim cavanaugh. thank you for joining us, as always. atf agents involved going in with protective vests on already. we've seen something of the operation eye visible here. >> chris, i think probably what happened -- we don't know. we'll find out in the next half hour or so certainly -- but when the superintendent of state

police lifted the order to stay in your house, all the residents came out of their house and naturally you're cooped up, may not want to walk to the grocery store but you're going to come out in your driveway, garage, and likely dzhokhar was laying somewhere in the bushes, in the weeds, behind the car, in the back of a pickup truck and he was spotted. so, you know, then the call went to 911 -- >> i see what you mean. >> we need to go right now to whdh. >> i just saw in the center here them take a robot and put it in the back of a bomb squad vehicle. maybe they are transported it closer to that location. >> i'm being held back. i am about a block behind the location. you guys don't have it yet but we were rolling on our camera here when the shots went off. >> we did get that, actually. yeah, we did get that.

a bit muffled on our end. >> i would say more like 20. but it certainly sounded like a long lasting firing there. >> all right. trying to get a confirmation on obviously a serious manhunt under way. people looking for resolution, looking for an apprehension in that case. we'll see if we can find out if police have their man. adam, stand by and see what you can do and let's check in with dan hosley. dan? >> they moved me back a little bit. but i'm still closer than any other reporter, i would say, to the scene. the backyards on birch street are what they are focusing on and they have a first line nearby and then a second line behind it. it's the second line behind it, they pushed me back a little bit. the robot just went by me about ten feet away and it's being

brought up closer to the scene. i can see up on birch street. it's interesting that susan talked about the lack of water around here and talked about a boat with blood in it and there doesn't seem to be any significant water in the area. now, i do see some things with tarps on them and there could be boats in someone's backyard or -- an officer just asked me to move. he's moving me a bit closer to things. but they are definitely staging an area and going in and out. >> so that is birch road. we're seeing it on the map now right off of walnut street. there is the charles river south of there but if there's a boat in that neighborhood, i would assume it would be in somebody's

yard. >> reporter: yeah. we are seeing some things in the yards between the houses. some of them covered with tarps. one could imagine someone tried to hide in that but we just don't know right now. this is definitely the area. that's the area where i heard the single shots when we were closer, the dozen or so shots we heard from the distance and you heard it, i was running up basically near the backyard. you could hear the single pop, pop occasionally in a distance. >> and it looks like -- dan, it looks like there are approximately 12 homes on birch road, maybe 14 depending on the ones at the intersection of walnut street and birch road. but looking at some of these pictures here, trying to get a better idea of what you're hearing and not getting a good idea from what i'm looking at

here. but again, we do know that gunshots, as dan heard yourself, adam williams heard it, adam williams his photographer caught it on camera. a succession of multiple shots. once again -- and dan, the twist of irony here because this community apparently had just been let back in after this massive sweep through their homes and this happens. >> yes. the laurel street had just been let in but the other homes the people were already inside them. this is four or five blocks away at least from laurel street but it is -- i believe it would likely be in the 20-block zone that investigators said they searched through very thoroughly and searched as well as they could as we heard 60 to 80% during the day and it would appear -- not certain, but it's probably within that 20-block zone that they searched and thought they had eliminated the

possibility of a suspect. >> well, looking at the map, arsenal street is south of the laurel street area and then if you just move further west, the streets circle a lot but i would say a quarter of a mile, somewhere between 8 and 10 blocks, likely in that ten-block perimeter that they said they were checking. the irony that he spoke of, it was about an hour and to minutes ago and now you're standing there talking to these people who are getting back into their homes after this wild gunfire last night only to hear shots as you're having the conversation. susan is there on the scene. we've been noticing that the bomb squad device do move closer to this house in the neighborhood on birch road. susan, are you with us? >> reporter: yes, kim. if you could just come over to our camera, the fbi is in military gear, long rifles. thif binoculars. they are fully geared for what

could be night vision necessities. they have their police dog with them. >> we're watching the local broadcast up there from local whdh. they are also in camouflage and heading in with night vision goggles on. i don't know what that could be other than going into a dangerous situation. >> they are bringing the full weight of the agencies that are deployed there to bear and this could, again, go very quickly or they could be engaged in establishing a perimeter and looking at the different options and deciding where to go completely in or deciding what to do. >> clint van zandt, i want to talk about the rules of engagement, if you can use that term here. you have someone who is a highly valuable person to describe the motivation, everything we need to know about why this happened

at the marathon on monday. all we need to know is in the head of that one person who is still out there perhaps alive. you also have the lives of these police officials and other paramilitary officials at this point going in to get him knowing that he's desperate. how do you balance those two concerns? do you get him alive and avoid getting killed? >> well, our best case scenario is the men you saw going in there, fbi squads or hrt, the reporter on scene described they have the weaponry, night vision, goggles. they can engage this guy in ways you never even thought of. it's not a question can we take him out or not. it's a question, can we get him caught there and talk. >> let's go to pete williams in washington. >> body found in a boat and, as you know, they have sent in the s.w.a.t. teams and the bomb

teams i assume as a precaution to make sure that the situation is indeed over but we don't have an identity on the body. we don't know who it is. we don't know whether the body is a result of the shooting. that would seem to be the logical conclusion, though. >> yeah, pete. right where they are in watertown, the charles river takes a kind of dramatic dip to the south. it does widen there but to your point, you're absolutely right. a lot of people have boats on trailers in their yards, not quite the season for that yet. and then again, there's always a lot of activity on the charles river, the scale of this map is too broad to zoom in with any specificity. >> the other thing that stands out to me and i'm sure to you, just looking at the pictures here, they certainly contrast with the pictures that we've seen earlier today, for example outside the house, where everyone was in a tactical position for a long time. this is a picture of people waiting.

this is a picture of people waiting for word from the people who went down to this boat. it doesn't seem like a lot of anxiety. it looks like they anticipate whatever danger there was has passed. so this is a group of people waiting to get the word and we are, too. >> that's right. obviously whatever activity is happening at its own perimeter and this is all the folks that weren't needed down there. lester holt, anything over that police radio? >> no. nothing at all. they seem to be holding this now as one of the perimeters. >> we're back here. a simulcast with brian williams and pete williams. you and i were getting unconfirmed reports of a boat with a body in it. >> there is a boat with what looks like a body under a blue tarp on the last house on franklin street in watertown. we hadn't had that confirmed.

pete williams has not completely confirmed that yet. it appears that they have surrounded the area. people standing outside just now on our camera don't appear terribly concerned. we don't have an identification of this body so we don't know if this is the suspect or some other citizen. but -- so that is one question. right now, by the way, just looking at the white house picture behind you, there's a tornado warning. >> i can hear it. >> we are getting august weather. >> the white house, as you can see, is working behind you and in that white house within an hour or so we understand the president spoke to vladimir putin. >> let's go to erica hill on the scene. can you confirm what you're getting about a boat, blood, a body, and whatever? >> reporter: we have not had that confirmed but i can tell you, though, that in terms of the increased police presence in

the area and continue to send out tweets in the area. residents are urged to stay inside, and also i think as you can see, over my shoulder here, a bus just came in. that bus was full of police officers all coming in, we should see them getting out pretty soon and again they are trying to keep us as far aas possib possible as law enforcement officials come through. >> erica, thank you for that report. this is one heck of a scene to be covering live. i've got to tell you that we're possibly covering a dead suspect, possibly. the description of a bed body in a canoe but in this situation the coincidence would be overwhelming if it was someone else but also this idea that we had a block-to-block intensive

search going on all day in that area and that means that the suspect eluded the police during the day and only when the lock down was lifted did we see something like this develop. >> yeah. and i think if this is the suspect, and if he is dead, then there's going to be a different type of forensics investigation right now with him. what is around him? does he have any other explosives with him? is it just one or two weapons? was it the exchange of gunfire that was heard? was his gun being discharged back and forth between law enforcement and the suspect? we don't know. but this massive deployment of law enforcement officials right now could bring this all to a head very quickly. >> clint van zandt, we're still in the age of the stage however of a moving story that we're only getting bits of right now but it looks like the police are closing in. they are not on guard in a sense of planning to go to further

action. they are there waiting for something to be resolved at this point. >> i just saw a picture of a guy taking a vest off. i would say there are a number of officers who feel they have the ability to stand down as far as their tactical readiness and the earlier report we had on site where someone said there was a dozen shots and then some other shots fired, that could easily suggest some type of confrontation that took place between officers still conducting a search or on patrol and the subject himself. that's what we have to find out but the urgency and level of response, it appears that they have stood down. they feel they have something. is it the guy they are looking for, we ought to know that in the next 30 minutes. >> shots have been fired, it may be a dead body, the suspect. we're going to find out. let's go to local broadcast, whdh in boston. >> this area has been sealed off and we're in a waiting pattern right now and the reason they

are not moving in is because they have their subject surrounded. he's not going anywhere. the only question is whether or not he's still armed with explosives because they had explosives with them last night or early this morning. >> wow, observant for a neighbor to see, a boat with a tarp, to notice a ladder had all of a sudden been added to the scene and not to think twice and make the call. you're saying that the helicopter is showing that the suspect in the boat, which we believe to be the second bombing suspect, is still alive and i wonder what kind of shots may they have fired because would they have known who was in that boat? >> and why they started firing. we initially heard that they did fire some shots and then they pulled back and then we heard that there was secondary shots

that were nonlethal bullets. these are s.w.a.t. teams that race to the scene so fast. this happened literally at the end of -- this happened at the end of the news conference, not long after that. we were standing there outside the watertown mall and as quickly as we were standing there, things were breaking up within a few moments these s.w.a.t. teams were breaking down arsenal street. every road was quickly sealed off and again that's when all this went down but again all these people, residents that we're talking to describe the same thing, hearing a flurry of shots going off. but again, according to my source, the reason they are not moving in and approaching the boat is because of this thing about explosives. these guys were loaded with explosives. a pressure cooker at the last minute that they threw out the window. >> i apologize. we'll check back. we have to get back to updated

info. >> i think another reason that the officers may be waiting to move in is because they want to get the civilians cleared. we just saw from one of the houses in the same area, carrying what appear to be young women in their arms, in pajamas, disab disabled or sleeping or couldn't get themselves out there. these officers carried them quickly 100 yards to safety with some other young people who could move following them behind. so the effort is to clear civilians out of the area while officers hope to deal with this just the suspect and them. >> i guess if they've got the boat and it's covered and they know they have a suspect inside, that's a big cavity in there. who knows what else and i guess they have to take every precaution, absolutely.

the power that they have and the distance that they can do to cause damage, that makes sense. steve cooper was talking about the fact that they could see the suspect still moving and seemingly alive. he said they were using some nonleth nonlethal shots which i think everyone wants to hear that he's apprehended. some experts will say a guy like this won't be taken alive. maybe people will want more answers and first of all feel him off the streets but maybe to get some answers. >> we're back again. to recap, we have a situation apparently where there's a person alive or dead, perhaps well alive, moving around according to the surveillance from a helicopter in a boat in a backyard, obviously up on a trailer and under a tarp. a woman -- a neighbor apparently

discovered a ladder after looking at the boat and then seeing a ladder, discovering a person in there and they were bleeding. we're not sure whether they are dead or not but clearly they are preparing the area as if he is alive because he may be ready to detonate an ied again like the situation we had at the marathon, another big explosion. that is a concern certainly here by the police. that's why they are pulling people back. as andrea pointed out, do it now. the questions on the minds of the strategic thinkers, bigger networks, collaborators, they want to know if he's a lone wolf or do they have accomplices. was it a local cell? were they directed by foreign operatives? they want to know who else is out there with explosives with intent to kill. >> and what else is it besides his brother going over to chechnya. >> they want to figure out how big of a terror plot this is.

clearly, was it two brothers or bigger? >> and let me go to clint van zandt on this because we may have a situation like we see in film and in television where the guy's barely alive and they are going to start questioning him. your thoughts because they need this information, they are going to try to keep him alive. your thoughts, clint? >> they want to keep him alive. they have a number of choices tactically, chris. they could fire smoke into that boat, they could fire gas, they could use rubber bullets, they could put a net over the top. they could electrify it. they could do a lot of things to force him out. what we don't want right now is an officer to have to commit himself or herself over the top and go in that boat and have the subject, as you've just pointed out, detonate an ied. so we're going to try to either talk him out or force him out of that boat so we can get eyes on and see how much threat he presents to the officers around and how much of a threat he presents to himself and at the

same time hopefully they will have a hostage negotiator there trying to talk to him, trying to give him a reason to give himself up and share his story as opposed to making a decision to do a suicide at this point. >> jim cavanaugh, you have to get in there and diffuse whatever is going on at the risk of your life. >> you know, this is a good place to be for the tactical commanders because you've got the guy in a boat and you can see he's in there moving around. the most he can have is a tarp or maybe that's off. likely the homeowner called about the ladder. officers come up. he might come out, the additional few shots we heard, five shots and responded to with a barrage, maybe if he tried to get out of the boat a minute later. in other words, the officers or agents would, if he's trying to leave the boat, then take a barrage of rifle fire to get back in the boat. so now a helicopter and he would

flee and looking at radars they would be able to see he's still in the boat, he's alive. look, now the determination is, secure the perimeter, get the lone rifle teams, we can send a robot up there. there's a lot of robots. put up a big arm, look right in there. what you're trying to determine is, does he have a bomb. because that's the assessment. does you have a bomb strapped on him? no bomb, he's got a pistol. he doesn't have a million rounds of ammo. so he's not going to win with the tactical team. he's not going to win. so now it's time, just like clint said, this is how -- when you're in command of this, you're in control of this. you can deal with this and you can talk to him through the robot with an upfront negotiator around the side of the garage and likely how they first engaged him was when the homeowner said there's a ladder and agents would come up you in

the boat can surrender and he might have popped right up with the pistol. this is a good situation. he could be taken alive here and that's the way justice should be done in america. chris, you pointed out john adams and the british soldiers the other need. that's exactly what should happen here. he should be taken alive and then like andrea said, and the intelligence debrief. >> erica hill, come in now. >> reporter: chris, i want to give you a sense of what nbc is learning as more vehicles are coming through. we're learning in terms of the massachusetts state police in terms of the divisions that are either en route or may already be in place, bomb, ballistics s.w.a.t. as you've been reporting and i

know you've been seeing from the local affiliate coverage over the last half hour or so this is really a full-scale operation as we see them coming through. that gives you a sense of what the massachusetts state police is sending in. >> the state police have put out an official statement. it's not helpful but it's preliminary. what we're watching right now and the police action here is related to the day's events, which i guess is another way of saying this is the suspect involved here. erica? >> reporter: of course, remember, too, in terms of the day's events, just before this happened the state police held a press conference and governor patrick said, look, we are lifting this stay in place, this request for you to shelter in place that we've had all day long. the streets here in watertown and frankly all around boston as i made my way in were quiet today. as soon as that order was lifted, that's when we started to see more people out on the streets and not long after that is when there were reports of shots of other areas of town and then not very long after that, of course, boston's police

department sending out not one but at least two tweets where they urged residents of the franklin street area in watertown, about a mile from where we are now, urging those residents to stay inside and to in fact go back in and, in effect, ordering yet another order for them to stay in place to shelter in place and not go outside under any circumstances. >> one of the things that is going to be asked as we go forward, depending on how this all turns out, what about the trapping of these two brothers? because we've been told that until the boston marathon and they showed up on the surveillance video, that they were not on anyone's register but now ann curry interviewed the father tonight in russia and the father says that the fbi came to their cambridge house two years ago to interview tamerlan tsarnaev, the older brother. >> before he went to russia?

>> before he went to russia. so they have some record of him, some reason why they went and interviewed him. >> that is something. after he knew he was a subject of interest, he went over and took that trip. >> right. >> let's get back to whdh. >> they are just trying to secure the scene so that way they keep themselves safe and of course the people in and around the immediate area safe as well should this person possess any dangerous, lethal types of weapons. >> all right. thank you. let's go back to steve cooper with new information. >> i was just speaking with another source who is close to the scene. i'm now being told that there's no movement in the boat. i'm also hearing that he may be bleeding out and not -- and it's not safe to approach and again the reason why is concern of possible explosive devices that he may have on him or with him.

so -- >> let's get the image on screen right now. this is the house with the boat behind you. this is not a live picture. it's a google picture and you can look to the back of it, when you get the picture up here, you're going to see the boat under the trees here in front of what looks like a garage or a workshop back there. or a guest house. we haven't got it yet. it's pretty fascinating. there it is. if you look between the house in the upper left going forward, where the marker is, look down between that and the -- what might be a guest house further there with the white wall on the back of it, right in that area there of grass is a boat and you can see it very clearly on the picture i have. so we're looking at the scene right now. everything that is going on right now, the circling of that

situation there which may involve a dead body or a live person with an ied strapped to him. there's a lot of potential -- the police are letting out very little information except it's related to what we've been talking about, the marathon bombings and that's clearly intended to say this is the suspect, that either he's in that boat or -- well, there is no other suspect. that's it. this is about the game right now, roger cressey. >> so what you're going to see here if in fact this is the subject and is not captured but is ultimately dead, we're going to get additional pieces to help explain the why. and what you're seeing is tremendous effort in going after cell phone records, communications, computer records, all the type of pocket litter that the fbi would find at the house and if there's anything else on this individual if in fact this is him, then is helps to better round out the picture so we can better understand why they did what they did on monday.

>> clint, it's like in sports between an air game and ground game, we were told on monday and tuesday as we began covering this horrific bombing at the boston marathon finish line that they were going to go by granule by granule, various pieces of bomb that are able to be recovered. all kinds of physical evidence that they are going through and some sort of very slow, very deliberate effort to some day reach the person who bought this material. however, we've seen the speed with which this apprehension has gone on now. it's just totally different than perhaps the old dick tracy world of going into the crime lab. it's being done now with surveillance pictures from lord & taylor. it's got everything going. people recognizing these people. their attempt to escape last night, the use of publicly distributed pictures of these guys, a digital apb going out last night. this is a fast-moving crime -- well, catching situation here. >> well, chris, as you and i

talked in your 7:00 show last night, we said 24 hours both subjects would be in custody. >> you did. >> and we're pushing right at 24 hours. you can't beat a picture. you cannot beat a picture. if you take a picture in the american public, we will catch a bad guy. we will catch a terrorist. and there was every reason between jim cavanaugh and roger and others as we've talked, every reason to believe these guys were from the local area. they knew their way around, they had to live locally to build the bombs, they had to have everything there. they were going to be known in the local area. once we had those pictures, law enforcement had everything going for them and the two subjects who somehow thought that the authorities wouldn't be able to pick them out out of a million pictures learned a lesson and hopefully that lesson goes out and those that are sitting on the edge of the abyss, the

emotional abyss and thinking they want to be copycats, they have to look at how quickly law enforcement has really been able to take a bomb blast and injured and dead people and turn that into who did it and basically get them in custody in less than a week. >> andrea, this has been done without political assessment or analysis. these could be guys who didn't like people and yet we're finding out this backdrop of chechnya and russia and break away from soviet union and all and they are caught by police methods but yet you know a bit of that backdrop. >> we know that the chechens have twice lost, they fought and lost wars against russia, that they now have a president who answers to moscow, that vladimir putin spoke to president obama tonight. he has been telling the u.s., you don't understand, this chechen situation, don't tell me about human rights. i need to crack down on these people. >> what do you think the

president came back with? >> i think the president -- you have the national security adviser in moscow this week talking to russia about syria and what we want from them. what we want is the intelligence on this family. we want to know about the chechens. we want to know, was this connected to politics or chechen terror. >> or putin has claimed before, perhaps accurately, a connection to al qaeda? >> exactly. let's face it. these could be two kids who have their own aspirational jihadism who have very different personal anger and are dealing with something that isn't chechen. >> we are not pro or anti-chechen. we are not involved. >> this would be the first time a chechen, if this were chechen terrorism, we saw what happened in 2010 when they hit the

subways in 2002 with the theater. >> but they have been anti-russian. >> they have exported jihadist to afghanistan, syria now and never before if this were the case to the united states. >> okay. we've got some news here from whdh. the actual event. [ gunfire ] >> roger, that's a lot of gunfire. >> that is a lot of gunfire and i'll have to defer to jim or clint if you can see or hear any difference, if it was an exchange or not. >> we're looking at the houses on google map here and those very same houses a moment ago or an hour ago, we saw what happened there.

the police firing a lot of rounds there. >> he lost that one. that was mostly law enforcement. i'm afraid he's in the boat and he's wounded by those police combat rifles and that he's bleeding out severely and they cannot get to him because of the fear of having a suicide vest on, i'm afraid this terrorist is going to bleed out in the boat and that may be his fate. normally police would rush up, even though he just shot at them and they would apply pressure, tourniquets, life saving ambulance, you can't do that here. what you've got to do is get the robot to go up there, look in there, see if there's a bomb and if there's not try to look around. if there is a bomb, dismantle the bomb. i would say this doesn't bode well for him surviving because if he's bleeding and he's going to be bleeding after that exchange, he's not probably going to last very long. >> let me play it again for everyone who just missed that.

this is quite dramatic. here's the shooting apparently of the suspect. [ gunfire ] >> you know, clint van zandt, we've been through a lot of these and it's like from a novel, all of a sudden an international event in this case goes to a little community in massachusetts with the dogs barking and the community hiding in sight, all of a sudden when it's now a fugitive being shot involved in perhaps an international event. this is an extraordinary moment. >> yeah. and realize what we just heard was probably two officers with 30 round magazines, each opening up on this guy. so i'm sure that boat looks like

swiss cheese right now. and as much as they would like to get this guy out of there and get this guy out alive, again, i agree, he's kind of made his own fate right now and we are going to have to you know, the intere- the terrible situation, we lost one officer yesterday, a college police officer. by had another officer wounded. a transit officer. we have all of this heavy armor and everything else, and it's the local officer who is just in there doing his or her job on a low level. they are the ones that always have seen, confronts these subjects, and takes the brunt of the initial shooting. >> that's what happened in dallas in 1963 as well. andrea? >> i just want to -- one word of caution. because in looking that video just now with the gunshots, it was daylight. and it could well be -- we're

not at whdh in their control room, that's our local affiliate, they could have been replaying video from earlier in the day. those could have been gunshots earlier in the day. >> that's what i thought it was. >> on the police scanner, movement reporter, suspects sitting up, all personnel ordered not to fire weapons. that was moments ago on the local police scanner. >> we made a point of saying it was earlier. this was an hour ago. but that report you just got from the police is -- >> that's the police scanner, is at 7:45. >> so after all those rounds fired, the person is sitting up? >> according to the police scanner. >> fast-breaking situations, official reports. >> that's about right. we're clear on this thing. >> we're close. >> i guess the question is, the accura sift rounds.

ak /*. >> well, if they are fired by law enforcement, you can bet they were accurate. they could have been going anywhere. >> police scanner is ordering that the media move back. >> i don't know why we're not hearing from the police. i guess they're busy. but i would like to know more. clint, it seems to me we're not getting reports on all this. we are trying to get it from the pictures we are getting and tweets. that's not a great way to put together an entire situation at all. >> what the police want, what the tactical teams want, is out of the boat under his own power. they want him to come to the side, show he doesn't have a bomb or anything else on him. that's best case scenario for a tactical arrest, is to get him out of boat where we can see him. get him down on the ground. and deal with him from that point. so if he is sitting up within that's, you know, he is still alive this theory. now he's got to get over to the side of the boat. because i don't think we want to go and try to help him if he's

got a bomb vest on. >> jim cavanaugh. the situation as it's developing here involves perhaps a live suspect, perhaps going to be in custody. able to talk. >> yeah, that's a better scenario that if he's bleeding out. of course, sitting up doesn't guarantee he's not wounded. but it would be the best scenario to get him alive if that's possible. it is going to -- if he is sitting up and he can communicate, then just like clint said, there will be interactions. kent, is he then not wounded and amablitory where can get out of the boat. we have a lot of things to determine from here. but the main thing to understand is the police are in control. the police are in control of the situation. he's in a boat. he's not in control. we're in control, the police. >> andrea? >> pete williams reported sources say he's been hit, he's

been in the boat much of the day. he's been hit but is still alive. >> question, jim and clint. it's roger. there are scenarios where if they do surround him that s.w.a.t. and some of the atf and others will come in with nonlethal round and try to establish a situation where, if they have to fire, they will fire with nonlethal -- nonlethal ammo in order to try and keep the suspect alive or simply that scenario doesn't play out when it's this fast-moving. >> sorry, clint. when he has a firearm, if he has a firearm, i wouldn't put the guys to shoot less than lethal on him. because that is just not -- you're putting the agent or police officer in danger. if he doesn't have a firearm, if it is dropped outside the boat and he just doesn't want it come out because he is antagonistic or something web can shoot him with a beanbag round or rubber round. probably not going against the firearm because of the risk to the officer. it is a judgment call.

but that's the way i would call it. >> i've seen situations where we've add guy in a car that refused to come out. we used shotguns to put gas in the car and let the gas drive him out. once you've got gas in the air, if confuses things, fogs things up. law enforcement have to have gas masks on and be toward ready to. it is not just throw gas in and be done with it. but that is an option the on-scene chief has. >> andrea -- >> just clearly. it is clear that as jim cavanaugh says, the police are in control here and we have to wait it out as everyone does. to see whether this is the

suspect and whether he is going to surrender. >> if they talk to him, chris, if they start a dialogue, we had one that lasted four days. we shot the guy a number of times. we talked to him for eight hours and got him to come out. so you can shoot people and still talk them into surrendering. if they can start talking with them, maybe he will surrender. that's the best scenario. >> who is making the rules of engagement here? do they set the rules here or the local police in charge of the situation? >> well, there's a number of things going on. now i'm sure everybody together made an agreement we would rather take this guy alive. if we have the chance. but they are also going to be told, don't put your life in

danger. if this guy shoots at you and you're in fear for your life or the life of somebody else, you have to put him down. it is not like on television where a lun yardshundred wards you can rip off a shot and shoot him in the shoulder. maybe a sniper can do that if we have one on scene. but the officers there with .223 rifles and if in fact that was gunfire we heard from the initial confrontation, what they will do is lay down a bunch of rounds to get this guy's head down so he is not shooting back at them. >> we have a report from a senior police department official. yes, we think so that it's him. a woman called in a report of blood, in her backyard, leading to a boat. the boston pd says quote, he's hit. probably been there all day. was scene on thermal imaging. boston police department says, wasn't moving at first but is now. so there we have that -- let me read that again. can we put that up again? i want it good through that

again. from senior police department official, yes, we think so. that it's him. a woman called in a report of blood in backyard, leading to a boat. the police department, boston police department says, yoequot he's hit. he was seen on thermal imaging. boston police department says, he wasn't moving at first but he is now. so that's official. we know what's going on. they think he's the suspect, and he's alive. >> yes. and it tells you one thing. tells you he's weak. we told you about that last night, chris, and we talked about it today. that clint was talking about it. i was talking about it. you were talking about it. if he is wounded, he's been wounded all night. there's a lot of blood and it makes you weak. from the boston police, you know, he wasn't moving at first. he is weak. and now they are detecting movement. this report of sitting up, is he propped up against the side of

the boat barely conscious or is he sitting up pretty active? that remains to be seen. what is the movement? he is barely movement, active, pointing a gun. we will just have to wait and see. >> let's take a look right now. what happened an hour ago as we went on the air about that time, police confronted someone in the backyard of this home in watertown right near that boat. let's listen to what we saw. >>. [ gunshot ] i want to thank andrea mitchell and jim cavanaugh and all the others to help us tonight. it is hotter than ever, cover rj now, with all in with chris hayes.